No Hate, No Fear

“NO HATE, NO FEAR! Refugees are welcome here,” chanted the growing crowd at JFK Airport on Saturday, January 28. They gathered—“out of nowhere” according to a New York Times report—in support of refugees and others detained at the airport as they sought to enter the country in the hours following President Donald Trump’s executive order the day before.

No fear . . . Encounters between humans and the divine in sacred texts often begin with precisely those words, “do not fear.” That is the heart of the good news. It is the message proclaimed by the angels at the moment God broke into the world in the form of a child. “Perfect love casts out fear,” says the author of 1 John.

We are at our best when we embody this message of love and resist fear. By contrast, governing by fear is deeply antithetical to our sacred call.

Through his barrage of executive orders, impacting thousands of immigrants and refugees, President Donald Trump has framed his leadership of the world’s most powerful nation by means of fear. He has amplified the fear of those who, believing our claims to be the land of the free and the brave, desperately seek refuge in our land. He has manipulated the fear of our citizenry by legitimizing the false claims that refuge-seekers, particularly those who follow the traditions of Islam, are a threat to our wellbeing. With his Islamophobia and his call to build a border wall, President Trump has portrayed us as a nation fearful of the world.

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IT’s 2004 AND, despite my best intentions, I’m a pop-culture junkie. While my one-year-old daughter is napping, I watch an episode of a new reality TV show, The Apprentice, hosted by New York real estate mogul, Donald Trump.

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How to Be an Activist

At a time when demonizing those who are not yet with us is commonplace and the political discourse is becoming more polarized, widening the political gap, insisting on seeing the humanity of others even when you despise their behavior, is a radical political act.

Become curious.

Ask not what is wrong with someone you don’t agree with, but rather what is driving them to support policies that are so hurtful to others.